<p>
But that addresses funding equality in public K-12 schools. Different subject.</p>
<p>I need to respond to some wrong and ignorant assertions from Tatin G (that I have seen before). I’m employed by the state of California, and even if you are in the better pension plan, which you need to seriously contribute to (8% of your salary now) it is impossible to retire at age 50 and receive 90% of your salary even if you started when you were 10 (there’s a formula that factors in how many years you’ve worked) ! Geez I don’t know where this stuff comes from. No one I work with retires until their mid-sixties, unless they leave for another job, because they can’t afford to.</p>
<p>And the pension obligations have nothing to do with the current budget crisis. The pensions are covered by CalPERS, which for now is able to meet all pension obligations. CalPERS was even running a surplus until recently. TatinG’s comments are just ignorance. Also I pay hundreds of dollars a month for medical coverage which is an HMO and is by no means “cadillac.”</p>
<p>her comments strike me as typical republican talking points. she very likely got that “retire at 50!” line straight from a whitman television ad which was meant to attack gov-elect brown.</p>
<p>You’re wrong. Police, firefighters, prison guards retire at 50 at 90% of salary. Other employees retire at 55 on 70% salary.</p>
<p>Here’s just one cite: [Modesto</a> out to cut retirement expenses - Government - Modbee.com](<a href=“http://modbee.com/2010/08/22/1304506/modesto-out-to-cut-retirement.html]Modesto”>http://modbee.com/2010/08/22/1304506/modesto-out-to-cut-retirement.html)</p>
<p>*That was to avoid wealthier areas from having too much to spend on their schools.</p>
<p>But that addresses funding equality in public K-12 schools. Different subject. *</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>The point was to address WHY the majority of prop taxes go to Sacramento and don’t stay locally. You thought that they were under “local purview” and therefore didn’t go towards UCs.</p>
<p>The money goes into the big pot and gets doled out to K-12, UCs, Cal states, and other state budget needs.</p>
<p>The Calif constitution requires that at least 50% of the pot go to K-12. It’s not like the prop taxes only go to some pot that is only for K-12. It goes to the big pot of which half must get spent on K-12.</p>
<p>doughmom is right about some things, but wrong about one. </p>
<p>Part of the state budget problem is because of the high annual contributions CA must now make to the various pension funds, including CALPERS and CALSTERS because they are so underfunded as a result of the decline in value of the assets they hold. The fact that they have enough money to satisfy current liabilities is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Post 45 is correct. The largest single expenditure in the State is on K-12. Which is why, given the poor product that much of CA’s public education currently is, money is not the issue. (As the dollars dedicated to education have increased, quality has decreased, and the apparent available local funding for individual schools & districts has seemed to also shrink, inviting the question, Why? And how? Where are the dollars going?)</p>
<p>A number of places:
- increases in administrative costs. However, again, some of that is a direct result of State legislation: proposals and mandates for This and That social or curricular or even experimental program, generating positions to administer those programs, and additional local resources to manage, oversee, and – the bureaucracy’s favorite word – document them. So, in short: burgeoning bureaucracy. I have a friend who just received her teaching certificate, and she said the first thing she noticed when going into schools was the number of unnecessary techno-bureaucratic “programs” of an artificially experimental nature, for standard aspects of education. (“Re-inventing the wheel” kinds of things.)</p>
<p>-administrative personnel: top-heavy relative to personnel assigned to teach. Also, I will add, too numerous para-professionals. Unions are somewhat to blame for this.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>population. In some locations, the echo boom and its younger cousins has not entirely faded. For example, in a very large suburb fairly near me, the district has many schools with five large Grade 2 classes in some schools, and similar multiple classes of other elementary grades in other schools. All that without closing schools, and with increasing class sizes as well. </p></li>
<li><p>enormous costs for language assistance. There are a couple of separate strands causing this. One is the largely illiterate population from mostly south of the border with not enough language support at home, in Spanish. (Poor parental literacy.) Remember that parental education is the strongest link discovered in studies of educational success. It is very costly to add that much language development, K-8 especially. I’ve taught in high schools where the English language level of 10th and 11th graders (the entire class) is anywhere from 4th grade to 6th grade, tops. And not necessarily most of those are truly newcomers. At many of these schools the district hires special translators to speak to the parents in Spanish whenever the parents have any questions, or when they need to be called in because of poor student performance. All that comes out of these public funds.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In addition, special curriculum materials for language development are costly, and that’s a part of the mix.</p>
<p>However, another part of this is that the sheer number of languages spoken in the schools is enormous. It is so in NY as well, but CA is larger. In the large metropolitan areas of SF and LA, the public schools are essentially a microcosm, if you can use the prefix “micro,” of the globe. Just enormous numbers of languages, from African countries to every country in Asia, to island countries; you name it. Even when translators are not assigned, it requires extra staff time to manage the language diversity. And, dating back to the '70’s, it’s been a long time since people coming to the States, but apparently esp. CA, assume that in order for their students to assimilate optimally into public schooling, the parents should speak the local language to assist in that. There’s some kind of notion that if they “keep the native language at home,” the students will just “pick up English” at school. Wrong. At least not in the intense way they need to, particularly not in the early years. The most prominent problem I encounter in public schools is the refusal of many immigrant families, including very educated, English-speaking parents, to speak English and to read English at home, and the assumption that American public schooling = English fluency, including high fluency. </p>
<p>-significant increases in Special Education programs, teachers, and administrators. In addition, SpecEd laws which mandate such assistance. There is also (thankfully) much better diagnosis now of true SpecEd conditions, as opposed to giving up on these kids. Finally (related) the better medical R&D for physical risks to young childre (leukemia, various childhood cancers and conditions) has resulted in an increase in SpecEd identifications, because the aggressive medication of these young children to save their lives has resulted in speech delay and more. I see increasingly more of these children.</p>
<p><a href=“As%20the%20dollars%20dedicated%20to%20education%20have%20increased,%20quality%20has%20decreased,%20and%20the%20apparent%20available%20local%20funding%20for%20individual%20schools%20&%20districts%20has%20seemed%20to%20also%20shrink,%20inviting%20the%20question,%20Why?%20And%20how?%20Where%20are%20the%20dollars%20going?”>I</a>*</p>
<p>When I lived in Calif, I was told that although the K-12 budget is for about $7000 dollars per child (back then), it really was about $4000 per child for kids who are attending publics in upper middle/upper class neighborhoods. The reasoning was that those schools could raise money on their own to cover shortfalls and that’s what the local PTA groups were busy doing…raising money. </p>
<p>Anyway…</p>
<p>I still think that Calif needs a better formula for figuring out who qualifies for Blue and Gold. A simple income test is not a fair formula since some families have more than 1 child in college, some families have lots of assets with a low income, and some families just consist of one or two household members and therefore a $79k income shouldn’t merit free tuition.</p>
<p>Good post.</p>
<p>I’d add to that:</p>
<ol>
<li> Waste in the building of schools. In L. A. a school costing half a billion dollars was built on the site of the old Ambassador Hotel near downtown. Sheer waste. Nearby is a middle school building brand new that as of last school year (the last time I was there) was empty. Another school in the same area was built on the site of an old toxic waste dump, which made remediation costs enormous. And also near downtown is an music and arts high school that is another modern architectural palace.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Meanwhile, the school in our area which was built in the 60’s is looking very rundown, but turns out the highest SAT scores in the state.</p>
<p>It’s not the buildings, its the students.</p>
<ol>
<li> There is also waste in the courses required. A course in cooking or sewing is still required for high school graduation. Ridiculous. A course in “Life Skills” and “Health” is required for high school graduation. Complete wastes of time. </li>
</ol>
<p>These courses could be eliminated from the graduation requirements, which would free up teaching time and classrooms.</p>
<p>Re: Pensions</p>
<p>From the Press-Enterprise yesterday,</p>
<p>“Unless changes are made, within the next four years, UC will spend more on retired workers than on classroom instruction”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…and you wouldn’t believe how often such “course requirements” are decided by State legislators as opposed to teachers, principals, local administrators, and Boards. And I don’t mean the State Dept of Education, even, but political legislators micro-managing an entire (different) field. Absurd.</p>
<p>I really don’t mind that some kind of “life skills” class is req’d as long as it’s a meaningful class that covers some basic “life skills”…such as basic cooking, sewing on a button, doing laundry, balancing a checkbook, creating a resume, applying for a job, doing a job interview, changing a car tire, making a budget, learning about saving/investing, etc.</p>
<p>I know to many of us it may sound unnecessary to offer such, but many kids (even very smart kids) really don’t know the basics. </p>
<p>A mom once told me that she was shocked to see her ivy-bound child put one regular postage stamp on a very large/heavy envelope. The mom had no idea that her child never learned that oversized and/or heavy mail takes more than a regular stamp!</p>
<p>Our district only requires the health requirement. Our problem was that there wasn’t room in their schedules to take it (and since it was only semester what do you take the opposite semester?) My two older kids ended up having to take it online. Now our school changed to a block schedule so you can easily take an extra class if you want to. So my youngest is actually taking the class and getting more out of it than the first two.</p>
<p>Guess whether it’s time wasted or time well-spent depends upon the course content. An awful lot of kids graduate from high school without basic survival skills like managing a bank account, budgeting for living expenses, managing debt, planning for emergencies and retirement, not to mention eating balanced meals, avoiding fast foods, exercising regularly, having routine medical check-ups and practicing “safe sex.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>California requires a minimum of 13 courses for HS graduation, but health is not one of them, nor is life skills:</p>
<p>3 English
2 Math
2 science
3 Social Studies
1 VAPA or foriegn language
2 PE</p>
<p>The State does require some health-type topics be discussed, but does not require a separate course for it – some districts cover the ‘sexual health talk’ during PE. OTOH, some districts require a health course as well as other local requirements.</p>
<p>[State</a> Minimum Course Requirements - High School (CA Dept of Education)](<a href=“http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/hs/hsgrmin.asp]State”>http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/hs/hsgrmin.asp)</p>
<p>If only “Life Skills” were about managing a checking account or student loans or something useful. It seemed to be about ‘finding yourself’ in our district.</p>
<p>And ‘sewing’ and ‘cooking’ were required. Also “Introduction to Computers” was required, no matter how much computer savvy the kid had. </p>
<p>These may have been local district requirements rather than state wide, but they were required for my kids and were seen as silly nuisances.</p>
<p>What with satisfying the UC requirements, the California graduation requirements and the district requirements, there was little time for any sort of elective.</p>
<p>Easy solution. Just get more international students. They’ll pay a fortune to attend UCB.</p>